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Google Sets Business Focus in Chelsea

By

Dana Rubinstein

Updated Dec. 23, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Google Inc. closed on the $1.9 billion purchase of its New York headquarters Wednesday in a deal that's become a powerful symbol of how th e technology sector is helping to shore up the city's economy.

The technology and Internet company established a beachhead in New York in 2000 with one worker based in a Starbucks on 86th Street and Columbus Avenue. Today it has 2,000 employees in Chelsea, most of them spread over several floors in the cavernous office building the company just purchased at 111 Eighth Ave.